A Dubious Attempt to Change Irvine’s Campaign Finance Limit

Mark Hanna, a Republican party boss at the turn of the century, once said: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.”

Following the decades of political corruption in American politics, citizens in many state and local jurisdictions rebelled. Dozens of cities and counties in this state have some form of limit on campaign contributions. Irvine is one such city.

The Lincoln Club, whose membership list reads like the “Who’s Who” of prominent Orange County Republican businessmen and women, has announced its intentions to challenge a number of local campaign finance ordinances.

First stop: Irvine.

The Lincoln Club wants to play a more dominant financial role in local elections. They seek to do this by challenging in court Irvine’s contribution limit to independent expenditure committees. If they succeed, they not only can make unlimited independent expenditures, they also can accept unlimited contributions from their members to make them.

Federal courts long have upheld the constitutionality of limits on contributions made to candidates, to political parties, and to committees. The rationale was that reasonable limits on contributions are justified to avoid corruption or the appearance of it.

These courts also have held that the limits on contributions to committees (Mott vs. FEC) are every bit as valid as limits on contributions to candidates. Otherwise, those seeking to promote their chosen candidate could get around the contribution limit simply by funneling massive amounts of money to committees, which then could make unlimited expenditures supporting a candidate. Any limits on contributions directly to a candidate would be rendered meaningless.

The city of Irvine places a $320 limit on how much any person may contribute directly to a candidate. In order to preserve the integrity of this limit, it also applies to contributions made to committees. Irvine is one of 43 cities and counties in California that limit contributions to independent expenditure committees.

Under the existing Irvine ordinance, members of the Lincoln Club each can give $320 to the candidate and another $320 to the Lincoln Club, which then can be used to make independent expenditures in Irvine elections.

But the Lincoln Club wants more.

To date, the club has made contributions directly to local candidates, but this has not provided them with the influence they desire over local elections. What they want is to remove the $320 limit on contributions to the club for expenditures for or against an Irvine candidate. The more money they collect, the more they can use to elect or defeat their chosen candidate.

However, the Lincoln Club should tread carefully. Orange County voters in the past have not been enamored of local candidates backed by this partisan money. For instance, in 1970 a local Republican committee heavily funded Gordon Bishop (a prominent Republican) in his bid for county supervisor, running against Ralph Clark. This was the first time that partisan money had been infused into a local election, and it proved to be disastrous for Bishop. Clark campaigned on this issue by exposing the partisan support that Bishop was receiving, and warning the voters that partisan interests were attempting to control local elections. The voters did not take kindly to this partisan involvement, and Clark soundly defeated Bishop.

It wasn’t until 30 years later that a partisan effort again showed up at the local level. This occurred in the November 1998 mayoral race in Anaheim. In the last month, the California Republican Party, at the request of the local Central Republican Committee chairman, spent well over $100,000 in support of Bob Zemel for mayor. As in the Clark-Bishop case 30 years earlier, the opposing candidate capitalized on the Republican Party’s attempt to buy a local election and their heavily funded candidate was defeated.

Ironically, in the same November 1998 elections, three prominent Orange County Republicans (Jim Morrissey, Curt Pringle and Rob Hurtt) who were running for state office were also defeated -- some by narrow margins. Party leaders were chastised by many local Republicans for spending their funds on a local race when this money could have made the difference between winning and losing these crucial legislative seats.

The Lincoln Club membership should think twice about a course that seeks to give them an unfair advantage in local elections, and further diminishes the financial role that local voters play in local elections. They should do so as individuals and under the same rules that apply to other contributors. Members of the Lincoln Club should not let their lawyers dictate their presence in Orange County’s political arena. If history is an indication of the future, they might find themselves winning the battle but losing the war.